Monday, June 13, 2016

In The Heart Of Things

The day my sister Dale died in 1981, I was surprised to find myself momentarily alone in her living room. I picked up a book of poetry. As I placed the book in my lap, it flipped open and the first words I read were:

We who are left, how shall we look againHappily on the sun, or feel the rain, Without remembering how they who went Ungrudgingly, and spent Their all for us, loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings—But we, how shall we turn to little things And listen to the birds and winds and streams Made holy by their dreams, Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

New to me at the time, it was a poem written at the end of World War I by William Lyon Phelps. It gave me gooseflesh and has remained with me ever since.

Wishing those others who are left, in so many places around the world, the chance to someday not feel the hearbreak in the heart of things.

I have no rain-wet lilacs. But I have heard birds singing among San Geraldo's sun-drenched hibiscuses. So, I'll share those and finish with a smile from a sweetly dreaming Dudo (he of the toothy grin).

Thank you!I have not been online for a few days to avoid all the news that is fit to print..and wandered into the happy area of my bookmarks and so glad I did .. Classy man you are...! Be well ... Tim in France

That poem very beautifully expresses heartbreaking loss and yet manages to remind us of the beauty that remains in the world, waiting to be seen again. Thank you for sharing it along with the sun-drenched hibiscus and sweetly dreaming Dudo; balms for injured souls.